Fed up with Facebook? Join the anti-social club

There are "anti-social networks" for everyone from foodies looking to swap recipes to artists and entrepreneurs hoping to network, with the focus of keeping them small. Membership is only granted to the best people in each area.

"People are getting overwhelmed by Facebook and other social networks, and they are unaware of who they are sharing what with," says Hermione Way, a social networking expert and video blogger. "New start-up firms are aware of this, and are imposing friend limits on people. For instance Path, a new photo sharing app, only lets you have 150 friends. There's a Facebook fatigue where you just see so much information when you log on."

One of the capital's newest anti-social networks is ndoorse, an exclusive, recommendation-only business network for high-flyers. "There's no easy way to stand out from the crowd with normal social networks," explains its co-founder, Jeremy Weil. "Everyone knows lots of people but they might not want to work with them - it could be just five to six people that you want to work with and those are the people we want."

Its London-based members come from leading professional services firms like PricewaterhouseCoopers and KPMG, major investment banks such as Nomura and JP Morgan and many FTSE 100 companies such as Reed Elsevier.

Weil explains that the very idea for ndoorse was born out of irritation with less exclusive sites: "There is a lot of frustration with LinkedIn and other social networks.

"Our members can communicate with each other in a smaller, more trusted community. Members need to have a few years' experience, have an academic background, and need to be interesting."

ndoorse also arranges real-time events at exclusive members' clubs across the city, suggesting that some old-fashioned methods of networking might not have lost their advantages.

"People want to meet face to face," says Weil. "It's a great opportunity for them to meet
like-minded people."

London's anti-social networks:
ndoorse - aimed at London's business elite and entrepreneurs.
pelime (People Like Me) - for artists, writers and other creative types.
foodspotter - dubbed "Facebook for foodies", where members swap recipes for their favourite dishes.
wiwt (What I Wore Today) - users upload their outfits and tell others where they bought their clothes.